Immersion Experiences

Whether you are called to serve in unfamiliar surroundings far from home, or you are
drawn to explore the meaning of social justice just a few blocks from campus, SLU
offers a range of immersive experiences to expand your understanding of stewardship
and community.

Trip Descriptions

This is an opportunity to explore social justice issues close to home. We will examine
some of the economic, racial, political and religious divisions in St. Louis and talk
to groups who are trying to effect change. During the immersion, we will use social
analysis and open, faith-based reflections to discern how SLU, and each of us, can
be a better neighbor in the community and be more and more ‘with and for others.’

This immersion is designed to help you see the world through the experiences, unique
challenges and joys of someone with an intellectual and or physical disability. You
will spend a week with the L'Arche Community, an organization that provides homes
and workplaces where people with and without disabilities share life together as peers.
You will serve with the community as a companion and helper, sharing meals, having
conversations and accompanying members, as well as performing basic maintenance such
as painting and cleaning in the houses themselves or at partner agencies. There is
also a day trip to understand the realities of New Orleans, LA.

Through this trip you will examine the unique public health challenges created by
rural poverty in Appalachia, as well as the ways local communities are and are not
addressing them. You will attend presentations about alcohol and drug abuse, access
to nutritious food, and the effects of environmental degradation due to industrial
activities in the region. You will also work with the local agencies below to gain
a more nuanced understanding of these issues through personal connection with patients
in public health clinics and children in after-school programs.

This is an opportunity for members of SLU’s diverse fraternity and sorority chapters
to come together for others. It is also an invitation for you to experience service
as more than swinging a hammer or digging a trench and enter into solidarity with
people marginalized by society’s social structures. Participants will travel to the
Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia to engage in direct service and learn from
people who are working to address rural poverty.

At St. Anne’s Mission located on the Navajo Nation, we will immerse in service and
education, helping with some manual work and visiting with students at a local Catholic
school. You will learn from some Navajos about life on a reservation today. There
will be a focus on public health-related issues including substance abuse, diabetes
and access to healthy food. You will also experience the distinctive cultural richness
of the Navajo people, including their history, landscape, mythology and rituals, learning
opportunities for solidarity and accompaniment.

This immersion explores how crime impacts communities, what measures and policies
can help them heal, and what our responsibilities are to those who have hurt us. You
will work with the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative in the prisons and jails
around Los Angeles County to help bring the tools of Ignatian spirituality to young
men in prison. The group will also meet with organizations working to reform the criminal
justice system in California. You must be 21 years of age to participate.

Step out of your everyday life -- out of your comfort zone -- and into in-depth, experiential
learning and cultural immersion. The Border Immersion Experience is an opportunity
to learn about the issues that affect lives of people living on the border. The program
includes: fellowship at El Paso-Ciudad Juárez fence, presentations at various social
justice ministries, assisting with after school program, personal accounts of border
life exposure to Mexican & Mexican-American culture, tours of colonias (rural settlements)
in El Paso, daily reflections, visit to ministries in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and bilingual
worship at Iglesia Luterana Cristo Rey.

This immersion, in collaboration with the Center for Service and Community Engagement,
explores immigration issues through the outreach and advocacy efforts of the Kino
Border Initiative, a bi-national human rights agency located literally just a few
steps from the US-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Participants
on this trip will experience the many perspectives and stories of border life, from
migrant people, and those who serve them, to Border Patrol and border communities,
who often struggle to balance security concerns with principles of human dignity.
The experience of constant movement and migration is integrated into this trip through
the lengthy drive from St. Louis to several border cities and by camping in the desert.

Trip Cost: $600

Kino Border Initiative

Student Leadership Opportunities

Serving as a student leader on an immersion experience allows you to be a role model
and a guide to your fellow participants. You will help your peers enter more fully
into the host community and be open to the challenges posed by seeing the world from
a new perspective. You’ll assist others in understanding the program pillars of community,
spirituality, solidarity and social justice and how those concepts can be integrated
into their lives after they return to SLU.

Before

Prior to the immersion experience, you will build community with fellow student leaders,
attend the Ignatian Companion Workshop, engage in six weeks of intentional leader
formation based on the pillars of the program (community, spirituality, solidarity
and social justice), work with staff facilitators to plan and lead six preparation
meetings with student participants. Student leaders will also lead publicity and recruiting
efforts for the trips.

During

While participating in your immersion, you will demonstrate the values of the program
through your behavior, as well as help the facilitators assess the needs and concerns
of other students and help facilitate reflection during the course of the trip.

After

Following your return to campus, student leaders are key to helping the group process
and integrate the experience into their lives at SLU. Each group will meet at least
once following their trip to explore what solidarity looks like here on campus through
completing a solidarity project and participating in a post-trip day of reflection.

Student leadership positions are serious, year-long commitments requiring three to
five hours a week, and more in the weeks leading up to big events.